This article is from page 27 of the 2012-11-20 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 27 JPG
ELEVEN fire and rescue service personnel from Clare who, between them, have a combined service record of 260 years were the toast of the 11th annual National Long Service Awards Ceremony that took place in Dublin at the weekend.
At a ceremony hosted by the Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, Fergus O’Dowd, two fighters from the county were presented with 30-year awards, while the remaining nine received 20-year awards.
The 30-year award winners were Martin Rodgers, who is a Sub Station Officer with Killaloe Fire Brigade and Joe McMahon, a firefighter with Kilkee Fire Brigade.
The 20-year award winners were Clare’s Chief Fire Officer, Adrian Kelly; firefighters Cormac Quinlivan, Brian Rudd, Frank O’Gorman, Paddy Doyle and Joe Tuohy; as well as Killaloe Fire Station Officer Paul Mollaghan and Sub-Station Officer Robert Fitzgerald.
The National Long Service Awards scheme is administered on behalf of the Department of the Environment by the National Directorate for Fire and Emergency Management.
The award in recognition of 20 years’ service takes the form of a medal bearing the traditional logo representation of the fire service – a helmet and crossed axes; the medal ribbon bears the Irish national colours, with a central column in red to represent the fire service.
The 30-year award is a representation of a flame in emblematic form. Both awards are accompanied by an appropriate certificate. Presenting the awards, Fergal O’Dowd TD, Minister of State at the Department of the Environment stated that awards scheme is the State’s way of honouring local au- thority fire service personnel for “being there over all the years, for being prepared to respond to calls for help, at all times, and in all weathers.”
“The commitment and professionalism of these long serving fire fighters is indicative of the highly experienced personnel employed by Clare County Fire and Rescue Service,” said Cllr Pascal Fitzgerald in congratulating the award recipients.
“Clare County Fire and Rescue Service has a proud tradition of Serv- ice to the people of Clare. Presently, our fire and rescue staff are among the most highly trained in the country and we are continually pushing to raise staff training levels even further,” said Chief Fire Officer Adrian Kelly.
“We remain fully committed to providing a multi-skilled approach not alone to the areas of fire fighting, but also to rescue and fire safety engineering. We are available for emergency response to the Community 24 hours a day seven days a week,” he added.